"SOS TEGHUT" COALITION OF ECOLOGICAL NGOs APPEALS TO ARMENIAN
PRESIDENT
YEREVAN, MARCH 3, NOYAN TAPAN. "SOS Teghut" coalition of 26 ecologial
NGOs filed a written complaint against operation of the Teghut mine to
the Armenian president. Mher Sharoyan, representative of "Armenian
Forests" NGO – member of "SOS Teghut", said at the March 1 press
conference that as a result of the mine’s operation, even greater
damage will be done both to the environment and local
population. According to him, a number of international conventions,
the RA Constitution and laws would be violated in case of the
program’s implementation. In his words, the real danger to the state,
population and environment was not correctly assessed during the state
expert examination of this program of Armenian Copper Program (ACP)
company. M. Sharoyan noted that the program’s implementation will have
especially disastrous concequences in terms of keeping natural balance
of the local catchment basin, depriving local settlements of drinking
water. Besides, according to Varsham Avetian, resident of the Snogh
village near Teghut, several local valuable historic and cultural
monuments are under threat of destruction. "We accuse others of
destroying Armenian historic monuments while acting in the same way,"
he said. Chairwoman of the Social-Ecological Association Srbui
Harutyunian noted that valuable mountainous forests will be cut down,
for which ACP will pay only 8 mln dollars annually, with the company
shareholders receiving incomes of 14 mln dollars. "So making a net
profit of over 406 mln dollars in 28 years, ACP will leave behind
impoverished soil and dried up mountain springs. It will take efforts
of several generations to restore all this," she said. Community head
of Teghut Harutyun Meliksetian, head of the Shnogh village Koryun
Shadinian and a group of villagers participated in the press
conference. They said that they are not against the program’s
implementation because nearly half of local residents are unemployed
and "have no means to feed their families". They were not concerned
very much about ecologists’ warning that Teghut will become a dead
zone in 30 years. "If all this goes on, Teghut will become an
uninhabited area sooner or later," the Teghut community head noted.